Stirling Castle Palace Archaeological and Historical Research

261 Pages·2009·1.4 MB·English

Stirling
Castle Palace
Archaeological and Historical Research 2004 - 2008
People, Place & Process:
The Royal Court at Stirling, 1542 - 1543
John Harrison
K I R K D A L E
A R C H A E O L O G Y
H I S T O R I C S C O T L A N D
Longmore House Salisbury Place Edinburgh EH9 15H
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Acknowledgements
My thanks to Genevieve Adkins and Sheena Garden for discussions and briefings, to
Doreen Grove for very useful comments on parts of the first draft of this Report, to
Dennis Gallagher for his interest and several items of information, to Jonathan Foyle
for his interest and for sharing his findings and to Michael Pearce for some
astonishingly obscure references to interesting things. Thanks, also to Diane Baptie for
her interest and suggestions and to Charles McKean for his probing questions and for
sharing his references. Errors of fact and interpretation are my own.
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Contents
Acknowledgements ii
1 Introduction 1
2 The court and royal households 4
3 The role of stirling in the 1540s 44
4 Evolution of the scottish court 85
5 The political & religious contexts and major events 130
6 Scottish society in the 16th century 175
References 188
Appendices 197
Stirling Castle Palace 2004 – 2008: The Royal Court at Stirling, 1542 to 1543

1 INTRODUCTION

This Report discusses various aspects of the Scots royal court in the 16th Century. It
concentrates on the period between April 1542 and July 1543 but, in order to present a
rounded view and cover some of the more general topics adequately, it considers
information from a wider time-span. That period has been chosen for the present
project mainly because, it is thought, at that time the work on the Palace at Stirling,
carried out for James V, had been completed but was still fresh. But the choice does
give some problems from the point of view of documentary research on the chosen
topics.

Firstly, James V, king of Scots – a previously healthy young man of 30 – died on 14th
December 1542 and was succeeded by his daughter, Mary queen of Scots, aged only
one week. That involved very radical changes in the political world of Scotland. The
effective royal authority was taken over by James Hamilton, earl of Arran, the little
queen’s distant cousin, who was also next in line to the throne. There was a rapid re-
organisation of the court and the various households and a major redistribution of
power. It also involved a change in the use of Stirling. And both the birth and the death
had wider implications for England and for Europe, too. So, many of the assumptions
that applied on 13th December 1542 were invalid by the 15th December – and many of
the practical arrangements were changed, also.

Secondly, the period is not particularly well documented and the documents that do
survive are not the ones best suited to the purpose. The records of the monarch’s
journeys and meals do not survive between 14 Sept 1539 and 13 Aug 1542 1. Nor are
there any records for a formal ‘council’ for the period from 1532 until 1545/6 so that
only indirect evidence is available about policy and about the movements of the chief
men attending the king and, later, attending the regent 2.

The report also aims to reconcile two contradictory requirements. On the one hand, it
brings together a lot of material for the first time, it tries to get a new understanding of
some aspects of the subject matter, it is primary research. At the same time (and within

1 Thomas, 1997, p.386.
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Stirling Castle Palace 2004 – 2008: The Royal Court at Stirling, 1542 to 1543

a limited time-scale) it is to be made accessible to a readership who are not all
historians or familiar even with the outline of the subject matter. To some extent it is
bound to fall between those two stools. Explanations of ‘the obvious’ will infuriate
those who know –and things left unexplained will bemuse those who do not. I feel
more concern about the latter group and whilst I hope that minor obscurities will be
forgiven, if there are major ones, do not hesitate to shout out!

Faced with the complexity and the connections between the various areas of the study,
I had to decide whether to use cross-references to other parts of the report or to repeat
myself. In practice, I have done both. I have aimed to have each chapter as nearly as
possible self-contained; they could probably be read in any order. There are several
hundred footnotes.

These are essential to support the academic argument and are sometimes used to make
comments and asides, to highlight small but illuminating points etc; but the casual
reader can ignore them. They never contain the core of the argument.

I hope that the chapter headings are fairly self-explanatory. Each chapter includes
several subheadings.

Each chapter concludes with a Guide to Further Reading. These Guides are intended
for the general reader, not familiar with the subject and they concentrate on published
books rather than specialised papers and theses but, I fear, that if you want a wide-
ranging, accessible book, not cluttered with academic references, full of illuminating
incidents and stories and covering the whole of the subject matter of this report – you
are going to have to write it.

In addition to the main body of the report (Chapters One to Six) there are several
Appendices. First, a Dramatis Personae, with potted biographies of some of the main
characters. Secondly, Presence – this builds on an earlier file and is still growing as
material comes to hand. It includes (more or less full) accounts of personal encounters
with Scots monarchs, regents etc. within a few decades of the study period. This section
comprises mere notes for a Work in Progress, not a finished product.

2 Cameron, 1998, p.334-5.
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There are two Excel Database files. One is called Courtiers Timeline; it attempts to
indicate what various major players were doing (and where) on a monthly timescale,
between April 1542 and July 1543. There are more data for 1543 than for 1542 (when
the king was still alive).

The crisis ensured that more records were made and, as the world’s attention suddenly
focused on Scotland and its little queen, more reports of events, people and views were
made.

The other Excel file is called Database Timeline and places the main court events into a
daily time-scale in the same period. Both these files could be expanded. A proposed
Matrix using a similar format but taking wider social, cultural and political issues, was
found to be impractical – it involved putting long-term change into short-term boxes!

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Stirling Castle Palace 2004 – 2008: The Royal Court at Stirling, 1542 to 1543

2 THE COURT AND ROYAL HOUSEHOLDS

2.1 INTRODUCTION: THE SHOW AND THE ROAD

Between April and December of 1542 the Scottish court was centred on King James V, a
man of just 30 years old. The full court lists extend to around 300 to 350 named people.
These lists are demonstrably under-statements3. On the other hand, there was a
constant turnover, these people were not all present at the same time and the overall
population varied steeply, with peaks at major events such as a coronation or big
political event. James V died at Falkland around midnight on 14th December 1542.
After a short period of uncertainty, the new and smaller court was formed around the
Earl of Arran, kinsman of the infant queen and governor of Scotland in her name 4.

The court in England was defined as ‘all those who at any time were within (the
monarch’s) house’5 a similar definition would apply in Scotland, though in neither case
were the humbler tiers of servants likely to have been regarded as strictly a part of the
court. In Scotland from late 1542, the little queen was initially looked after within her
mother’s household at Linlithgow; but in the following July, the two queens were
moved to Stirling and shortly after that de Guise had 30 ‘men’ about her and the little
queen was watched over by two barons with 24 men each. These ‘men’ were guards
and distinct from their personal staffs 6. There was a constant interchange between the
Arran and de Guise households – particularly as they both wanted to keep very wary
eyes on the other’s manoeuvrings. Eventually, in 1554, when de Guise was appointed
regent and governor in Arran’s place, the court would shift focus once again.

Nor was this the only sudden switch in the character of the 16th Century Scots court.
James IV was killed at Flodden in 1513 and was succeeded by his infant son, James V,
initially in custody of his own mother as regent. She was soon replaced by the king’s
kinsman, Albany, but he was only intermittently present in Scotland and the court was
multi-focal, partly surrounding the child king, partly around Lennox when he was

3 Thomas, 1997, 41.
4 Merriman, 2000, p. 92 for the scale of Arran’s and de Guise households at this time.
5 Thurley, 1993, p. ix.
6 Letters and Papers, v. 18(2) item 24, 10th Aug 1543.
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Stirling Castle Palace 2004 – 2008: The Royal Court at Stirling, 1542 to 1543

present but also around a changing group of nobles who had effective political control.
In 1526, a new system to rotate control of the king between leading nobles was swept
aside by the king’s step-father, the earl of Angus, so that the character of the court
changed again. Only in 1528 could the young king free himself from Angus’ control
and set up an independent court, focused on himself. That court was the instrument of
his political concerns for the next 14 years until the events just outlined above. So, the
court could experience sudden radical changes both in focus and structure; but it was
also fluid in a more evolutionary sense, even the adult court of James V underwent
change. So, it is rarely possible to fix the court, to say that it always functioned in this
way, always focused on that object, always observed these rules.

These changes were partly accidental – the early deaths of the two kings at a time when
their heirs were infants were not part of the plan! They also were reflections of the
particularities of the Scots political situation, of the power structures underlying the
royal authority; in Scotland, for example, there were always powerful nobles ready to
move into any power vacuum close to the monarchy with a view to enhancing their
own power and that of their kin. That gave rise to rivalry with other noble groups and
so to instability, the struggles between the queen mother and the nobles following
1513, the tussle to control the little queen in 1543.

The court was not just a social gathering around the rulers and not just the servants
who looked after the royal households – who did the cleaning and cooking and fed the
horses, for example. The senior members of the court were the government of Scotland
and provided the main link between the monarch and the various localities and
interest groups. Some of these people inherited their positions at court, others
struggled desperately to gain royal favour and promotion – success could depend on
the royal whim as much as on competence or honesty. In consequence, the court was a
place of scheming and waiting, of boredom pierced by intermittent terror.

There were many ‘hangers-on’ (and there were more or less frequent attempts to
control their numbers). There were also visitors of various kinds, from ambassadors to
petitioners, from entertainers to exiles seeking protection7. It was essential that nobles
such as the Wardens of the Marches, who had important administrative roles on behalf
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of the Crown in their own localities, should divide their time between court and
locality; these were men who travelled with a sizeable retinue, perhaps 40 or more
horsemen. The court was, thus, a fluctuating community, based around the person of
the king or regent though not always with him.

The court was associated with particular places, places that provided the setting for the
display of power. Henry VIII in England had over 60 houses at the time of his death in
1547 and it is said that Francois I of France would have had ‘no idea’ of how many
houses he had 8. These residences were varied in function. Henry had ‘only’ about six
greater houses, mainly close to London, whilst most of the major French ones were
close to Paris. And both in England and in France, the different residences had
different functions – the biggest might be the site for great state occasions whilst the
smaller were for retreat, for privacy, hunting and pleasure. Whilst some of the
residences were used extensively, others were rarely visited.

And both in England and in France, there was a tendency for the big moves,
undertaken in great state, to be in the summer; in winter, the court tended to settle in a
central area and move less frequently and with less state. Henry VIII is known to have
made at least 1150 moves during his reign (1509-1547) 9. There were several reasons for
this constant royal movement. It brought the monarch into contact with the people and
displayed the royal power. It might be to visit religious shrines. It was a way of
escaping from business, so that ambassadors and administrators might be left behind
whilst the monarch was travelling – that may have made it easier to keep secrets from
them, since courts were always full of gossip. In the extreme, monarchs went
themselves on military campaigns and were expected to be able to command and fight
and James IV and V and Mary all commanded their own armies, Mary with evident
enjoyment. They needed to meet and even to listen to their nobles and a visit to a noble
house was a huge honour intended to ensure future loyalty. They might need to travel
for particular purposes of state or for major events. They travelled to administer justice
in the localities. And they travelled to go hunting, hawking and to enjoy other sports 10.

7 Armstrong (1977, p. 58) makes a similar point about the Burgundian court in the 15th Century.
8 Thurley, 1993, p. i; Chatenet, 2002, p. 39.
9 Thurley, 1993, p.73.
10 Furgol, 1987, for reasons for Mary’s journeys, which were essentially similar to her father’s.
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